Channel Program is Days Away From a Big PRM Play
Channel Program is Days Away From a Big PRM Play
According to analyst Technavio, the global market for partner relationship management software will grow at a 16% CAGR through 2027, adding over $65 billion a year in revenue along the way. Channel Program will become the newest contender for those riches starting next Tuesday.
That’s when the still young company, which operates a platform designed to connect vendors with MSPs and vice versa, will officially roll out a PRM solution of its own. The new system aims to be significantly easier to use than existing products that, per Channel Program, too often confuse and intimidate users.
“The idea is don’t overengineer it, because everybody in this space has built these complex behemoth PRM platforms that just get just very light utilization,” said Kevin Lancaster (pictured), Channel Program’s CEO and co-founder, in a conversation with Channelholic this week. “We built it in a way that’s just intuitive.”
The system will also give MSPs who currently log in and out of multiple PRM solutions a single pane of glass for collaborating with multiple vendors, Lancaster adds.
The new tool will support 15 vendors, including Augmentt, Blackpoint Cyber, Quickpass, Solutions Granted, and Mailprotector, at launch. Another 55 vendors are in line to join later, says Lancaster.
Access to the system will be free for MSPs. Vendors will pay an optional, incremental subscription over and above the fees they pay at present to participate in resources like Channel Program’s product reviews and “StackCharts,” which offer at-a-glance visualizations of how many reviews are on file in categories like BDR, VoIP, and antivirus, and how well products in those categories scored. Vendors can create a basic profile listing on the Channel Program site at no charge.
Lancaster and fellow co-founder Matt Solomon, now Channel Program’s chief business development officer, are both veterans of ID Agent, the dark web monitoring and security awareness training vendor that Lancaster created in 2016 and sold to Kaseya in 2019.
Both Lancaster and Solomon left Kaseya in 2021 and launched Channel Program late that year. Among its earliest offerings was a series of free monthly events at which MSPs can hear directly from vendors about new solutions without surrendering their contact information. “Unlike going to a trade show, the MSP attends anonymously, and they decide whether they want to engage,” Lancaster explains. The events also give vendors—and especially newer, smaller ones with limited marketing budgets—a cost-effective way to reach MSPs, he continues.
“We’ve kind of leveled the playing field where a vendor can come in at a very affordable price and participate in one of these events and get in front of a couple hundred MSPs,” Lancaster says.
Building a PRM system into the service, he adds, turns it into a complete lifecycle management platform. “If I’m a vendor, I can now recruit, enable, and manage my channel all in one platform.”
Channel Program has nearly 6,700 MSP enrollees at present, according to Lancaster, who expects that figure to reach 10,000 this summer.
A Microsoft Cloud Partner Program mystery (partially) solved
Microsoft briefed the media early last Wednesday on some partner program news that went public later the same day. My buddies at ChannelPro did a great job of covering that, but there was a fleeting moment during a presentation by Julie Sanford (pictured), Microsoft’s vice president of go-to-market strategy and programs for global partner solutions, that got my attention. Here, in its entirety, is what she said about one of “three new homes under development and in pilot this year that will GA on a global basis in Microsoft’s fiscal year 2024”:
“First, we have a new home for partners who focus on the support needs of our small and midsize customers. This is about creating a trusted ecosystem that customers can rely on to provide outstanding customer support outcomes. We see this as a huge growth area for our partners.”
If you’re my age or older, you’ll understand why I was curious to learn if Microsoft is reviving some version of its long lost and much missed Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC).
Well, it’s not, but what it is doing is significant just the same. Today, members of the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program with a sufficiently high “partner capability score” can qualify for the company’s Solutions Partner designation in six areas. Two of those areas—Business Applications and Modern Work—have had tracks for SMB partners since last September.
Starting sometime during Microsoft’s next fiscal year, which begins July 1st, partners will also have the ability to pursue a brand-new Support Services Partner designation targeted specifically at providers of technical support to SMBs. There’s a new Learning Services designation for training partners coming too, along with new options within the Solutions Partner designation for ISVs.
The Support Services piece of that news is “interesting and not surprising”, according to Dave Seibert, CIO of Irvine, Calif.-based MSP IT Innovators and a member of Microsoft’s exclusive Worldwide Partner Influencer community.
“It’s an exciting time for Microsoft partners that focus on SME (Small & Midsize Enterprise) market segments,” said Seibert in comments emailed to Channelholic. “As the Cloud Partner Program continues to evolve, it provides for better client matching to partners’ abilities. I also hear great partner feedback that Microsoft efforts are needed for a similar program that enhances SMB clients and the partners that provide for them. Microsoft had such a program, but it was retired (SBSC). With SMB companies making up 99% of all U.S. companies, the need is real.”
How big a partner capability score will be required to become a Support Services Partner? What benefits will you get? Microsoft isn’t saying yet, but I suspect we’ll learn a lot more in July during the Microsoft Inspire partner conference.
HaloPSA’s ChatGPT integration: Handle with care
Atera added automated scripting based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT to its RMM solution early in February. When ConnectWise followed suit a few days later, it was quick to stress (per my reporting for ChannelPro) that while the new feature can handle 80 to 95 percent of the script-writing process, technicians must still scrub and complete that code before rolling it out.
“We are providing assistance here, but we are not replacing a human,” said Raghu Ram Bongula, ConnectWise’s CTO.
The very recent and much less noted addition of ChatGPT-based functionality to HaloPSA’s flagship solution underscores the point. Witness what happens at about the 16:52 mark on this demo video when the new feature provides an artificial but not-so-intelligent response to a simulated self-serve ticket filed by a user whose laptop is on fire:
“Oh no, that sounds like a serious problem! The first thing you should do is immediately turn your laptop off and unplug it from the wall. Do not attempt to use it again until it has been serviced by a qualified technician. If you are able, I would recommend contacting the manufacturer’s customer support line or a local repair shop to have your laptop inspected and repaired.”
Like Bongula says, folks, ChatGPT may be helpful to busy technicians, but for the moment at least it’s no substitute for them.
DEI in IT: We can do better
CompTIA’s latest State of the Tech Workforce study, just out this week, is packed with interesting data, much of which qualifies as good news (272,323 net new tech jobs expected this year, median tech wages 103% above the median national wage, and I could go on). And then there’s this:
We can and must do better. Not hard to find organizations addressing this issue, and CompTIA’s own Advancing Tech Talent & Diversity Community is doing good work too.
Also worth noting
Speaking of PRM, Mindmatrix now offers “partner engagement concierge services” to help subscribers boost ROI.
Zoom IQ, a “smart companion” for Zoom’s popular videoconferencing system that summarizes chat threads, draft emails, and more, now taps into AI technology from OpenAI.
Jabra is first to market with a conference room video bar leveraging the new Teams device ecosystem Microsoft announced this week.
Another new videoconferencing product from Owl Labs not only offers what the manufacturer says is the only wireless front-of-room camera on the market with a 360-degree view but also pairs seamlessly with an adorable owl-shaped speaker/microphone to boot.
Speaking of owls, security awareness training vendor CyberHoot is the latest newcomer to Gradient MSP’s Synthesize integration hub.
The cable guy now has SD-WAN for SMBs.